Theo Mallier: Growing Pains

1988

1988 saw The Last Emperor sweep the Oscars, the Piper Alpha disaster, the Clapham Junction rail crash, the Northern Ireland funeral murders, the end of the Persian Gulf War, and the deaths of Richard Feynman, ‘The Little Waster’ Bobby Thompson, and ‘Wor Jackie’ Milburn, the most revered Newcastle footballer to ever wear the number nine shirt.

The number nine was an important number for Theo Mallier in 1988, it being the age he met his life-long friend, Joey Alexander Lewis. His middle name had come from the author of The Three Musketeers, as his mother fancied Michael York, and used to watch the movie endlessly. Joey had no such attraction, but loved the sword fights and their mantra, ‘All for one, one for all’. The most striking feature about him was that he was unusually tall for his age, and towered above the rest of the class by at least a foot. He could not yet be considered gangly, though. That would come later as his body ached and stretched its way towards giant-hood.

Friendships that are formed forever are mostly formed in playgrounds, and Theo’s and Joey’s was no different. As Theo sat alone on the school wall, focussing his thoughts on finding possible ways to use a lightsaber in metalwork lessons, Joey came and sat next to him. His hair was ruffled and his uniform was a mess, as if he had been fighting. In truth he had been, but the fighting had come more towards him than from him.

The fighting had come from the rotten apple Tyrone Matton and his bullying accomplices, and was the latest in a line of attacks that Theo had also become accustomed to over the past year. He hadn’t told anybody about that, and wished he could have some of his father’s gusto when it came to being intimidated. The problem Tyrone had with both Theo and Joey was that they were both unexpectedly intelligent. They were in the same top sets for English and Maths but had never associated before now.

‘Matton?’ Theo asked Joey.

Joey straightened his tie and his hair. ‘Yeah.’

‘What did he want?’

‘To beat me up.’

‘He always asks me for money. It’s probably the worst thing he could ask for. All I’ve got is the free dinner tokens and he takes them instead.’

‘So you’ve had nothing to eat?’

‘No.’

Joey picked up his bag and pulled out a packet of Fizzy Cola Bottles, opened them and gave half to Theo.

‘Thanks,’ Theo said as he put four of them in his mouth at once. ‘I wish somebody would sort him out.’

‘Yeah, if only we had a Wookiee to pull his arms off.’

‘Aren’t you a Wookiee, then?’

In that moment, both boys realised they had both said the word Wookiee to another person and that other person hadn’t shied away, looked puzzled, or been dismayed.

They became inseparable, joined by a love of their favourite movies and books, pulled together by swords and lightsabers; there weren’t many other playground situations where Athos or d’Artagnan would be having a sword fight with Luke Skywalker. Their mutual love of science fiction occasionally steered them to North Shields Library, where they would stay for hours reading up on mythical stories about knights, and were also fascinated by the Isaac Newton story and how he discovered gravity.

In their bookish revelry, they one day hatched a plan to find out anything their initials, TCM and JAL, stood for. Joey couldn’t find much, but Theo found plenty. After they had finished, Theo took the list to his father to see how many he had heard of. George hadn’t had a drink for a couple of days, by financial embarrassment rather than willing abstinence, so his eyes and brain were lucid when Theo accosted him with the list.

‘Hey dad, I’ve been looking up things that TCM stands for.’

‘Oh, yes. What did you find?’

‘There’s trichol – trichlometh –’ he looked at a piece of notepaper he had in his hand. ‘Trichloromethane.’

‘Hm. Chloroform. What else did you find, son?’

‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’

George raised his eyebrows. He had seen that particular parade of blood and sickness in its entirety, and was chilled at the reminder. ‘We’ll bypass that one.’

‘The Theory of Condensed Matter.’

‘Oh, yes, quantum physics.’

‘Eh?’

‘Subatomic particles. It’s what atoms are made from. They are everywhere and they are what formed the universe.’

‘Attims?’

‘Another time, son.’

‘I thought Harold the Wart formed the universe?’

‘Who’s Harold the Wart?’

‘Our father, a wart in heaven, Harold be thy name.’

The humour of a nine-year-old did not resonate with a man of thirty-eight. ‘So you’re talking about God?’

‘Yes,’ Theo replied, sheepishly, smile gone.

‘That’s one theory. There are many more, but that theory seems to have taken off.’

‘Isn’t God everywhere, like the teachers in the school say?’

‘If you believe that, then yes. If you don’t believe that, then maybe there’s another explanation.’

‘Are you saying that the God story is not true?’

‘I am saying that nobody knows, son. Nobody can possibly know.’

‘But the teachers and the priests say that it is.’

‘You have to question what people say, son, not just blindly believe them. Remember at Christmas when you told me that you didn’t believe in Santa Claus any more?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you say that?’

‘Well, it was – well it was just that I looked at the story and it didn’t seem right to me.’

‘So you already know to question things.’

‘Well, I guess.’

‘So you should question everything.’

‘And all those people around the world, they are all wrong?’

‘No, not wrong. They just haven’t questioned it.’

‘So why do they all go to churches and pray and stuff?’

‘It’s kind of like the atomic theory which I haven’t taught you yet. Objects gravitate towards mass because they are duty-bound. They can’t not do it.’

‘I don’t understand that.’

‘One day, son, one day.’

‘I learnt about gravity, though. It’s what keeps everything in place, keeps it down.’

‘Hm.’

‘There was another one I found but I didn’t look at it properly, I think it was about the Marx brothers.’

‘OK. We’ll talk about that another time as well.’

‘And the Christian Mission.’

‘The Salvation Army. We could all do with a bit of that sometimes.’